Incoming Cuyahoga County prosecutor to meet faith congregation

Michael O'Malley and Timothy McGinty neck and neck in race for county prosecutor

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor-elect Michael O'Malley and other county officials will meet Thursday with the Greater Cleveland Congregation to discuss criminal justice reforms.

(Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County's incoming prosecutor, Michael O'Malley, and other county officials will meet Thursday night with faith leaders who are demanding major reforms to the criminal justice system.

The 1,500-member Greater Cleveland Congregation promises to hold O'Malley to his campaign proposals to seek independent prosecutors when police use deadly force and funnel more low-level defendants away from jail and into alternative treatment.

O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Presiding and Administrative Judge John J. Russo and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish are expected to attend the 7 p.m. Thursday meeting at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, according to a release.

The group will present O'Malley, Russo and Budish with four demands and ask for specific policies to address each of them:

bring in special prosecutors and investigators to probe uses of deadly force by police

create a civil rights division in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office

The event follows a February "mock trial" in which the group argued that heavy-handed law enforcement and prosecution practices had an disproportionate effect on minorities in America's inner cities.

At the event, both O'Malley and current Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty promised to find reforms, and Rev. Jawanza Colvin pledged that the group would hold them accountable.

O'Malley, a former city councilman, prosecutor Bill Mason's second-in-command before becoming Parma's safety director, defeated McGinty in the March Democratic primary and ran unopposed in Tuesday's general election. He takes office Jan. 1.

O'Malley rode to victory by blasting McGinty's handling of police-involved shootings, including the November 2014 killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Neither Cleveland officer involved in the boy's death were prosecuted.

O'Malley declined to say during the campaign whether he would have sought to indict the officers, but he capitalized on public outrage and unseated McGinty by winning more than 70 percent of the vote in the county's majority-black precincts.

The group also said that Azizi Arrington-Bey, the sister of Omar Arrington-Bey, is expected to speak at Thursday's meeting. Omar Arrington-Bey suffered from mental illness and died in a restraint chair at the Bedford Heights Jail in 2013.